32 Comments

Gitaxis

November 28, 2017 at 8:23 am

I’m very optimistic about this card. I’m not sure how good it would be right now, but with the 2 other warlock cards just revealed this seems pretty strong. Can definitely see it being played in handlock and maybe a Highlander deck?

Great for Warlock, but a question mark for zoo. It should work with a change in minion-centric thinking.
Seeing this as replacement for Earthen Ring Farseer.
It loses a small minion, but keeps health, gains synergy, and kills a taunt. Win.

Some of these spell stones shown so far seem to be weak. Why? Cause they are usually hard to pull off an upgrade especially if you don’t have the right cards in hand at a specific time. So what makes this one any better? Your hero power id the only thing you need to activate it’s upgrade, and unlike the druid one, you only need to do it ONCE. Not to mention the fact that handlock basically taps for 2-3 turns anyway, making the heal you get so great. So far the spellstones are going from decent to bad to great all around.

These spellstone cards are no good, mark my words. You hardly are going to keep them in your mulligan, which means upgrading them is going to be harder than people imagine. Add to that the fact they are (deliberately) over costed at vanilla level, only barely fairly costed at one upgrade and only finally undercosted at the 2nd upgrade means you never really want to play them before then. As for this one, it’s minion targeting only, which is bleh. Yes Lifesteal is nice, but if you want some hard removal something like Blastcrystal Potion is way more consistent, despite it’s (minor if we are saying this is for control warlocks) downside.

I think it depends on the specific spell stone. The Warrior and Shaman spell stones look rather weak, precisely because they’re so expensive that you would never keep them in your opening hand, but the Mage, Druid and (probably) Paladin spell stones are cheap enough to keep in your opening hand, are already good for their cost even in base form, and are easily upgraded throughout the game. This one is also very good; even though you wouldn’t normally keep this in your opening hand, Warlocks like to draw cards with their hero power, meaning it’s more likely you’ll find this, and removing a minion while healing yourself is exactly what warlock wants to be doing anyways. I think you’re dead wrong here.

I agree with what you say about cheap spell stones, but this is by far the worst one. Tidal surge is the 2nd form of this spell, and that card is terrible. There’s better option than this, and the requirement is hard to complete.

This requirement actually won’t be that hard, particularly in a more control oriented warlock deck. Hellfire, Abyssal Enforcer, Chittering Tunneler, Felfire Potion, and Vulgar Homunculous will all trigger this. Plus, 4 mana to heal 3 and deal 3 isn’t that terrible of a deal to begin with, at least for Warlock which has always struggled to keep its life total up. I think that this will definitely see some play, especially since it’s amazing after even just 1 upgrade. 5 damage is enough to kill most of the common threats at the moment (Raza, Cobalt Scalebane, Bonemare, Thing From Below), and also healing 5 at the same time is a huge swing.

8/10
The only popular card that Warlock is losing that does self damage is Abyssal Enforcer, and the other two latest warlock cards revealed also do minor self damage. This card seems to be quite powerful, especially at full charge, so I can definitely see it getting played. The other main contender for the slot would be Shadow Bolt, but even with the mana cost being 1 lower, the potentially higher damage and healing makes the Amethyst Spellstone more valuable; even just the second stage seems like a direct upgrade to it.

Seems really good in control warlock. When fully upgraded, it’s comparable to the 4/7/7. Before you go off on “How in the world is this like the 4/7/7?”, think about it: 4 mana, deal 7 damage, heal for 7. It’s as if the 4/7/7 had charge, taunt, affected by spell power, no overload, and could only attack once. Your opponent has to deal with the taunt and waste 7 damage (the lifesteal component because this is basically healing), it has one charge attack (the deal 7 damage), and it’s immune to any debuffs or AoE while also being affected by spell power (it’s a spell). All in all, I think that this will be a staple in controllock.

I’m optimistic about this card, especially with the other two really good cards revealed along side of it. Baseline it’s a poor card, but one upgrade puts it on a caparable level with fireball (doing just 1 less damage in exchange for 5 points of healing), and after two upgrades it’s just insane. I think because of the cards revealed, and the self-damaging options Warlock already has (Flame Imp, Hellfire, and Abyssal Enforcer), this card is going to do quite well, especially as Warlock looks for more and more healing options.

In Arena this card is going to be poor unless you can get the support cards for it. Maybe not super unlikely, but I imagine that frequently it’s just going to be a 4 mana deal 3 damage Lifesteal, which is really bad. If you can get it there though, this becomes a really powerful card for Warlock arena.

yup this is the card warlock has wanted for some time, the only thing is, i hate with a passion that the death knight heros are basicly must play , i really don’t want to have to craft the warlock one to play, and it’s ridiculous that they’re so prominent.

Wow !!! Dude Flame imp, Vulgar homonculus, Pit Lord, Kobold librarian, have reason to see play now !!!! Easy to upgrade and to then deal 7 and Heal 7 for 4 mana and perhaps play a minion after.. Seems very well balanced. I would like to see more take damage cards for warlock as a mechanic. Not discarding cards, discard warlock is just bad news, this however is much more fun and much less risky.

yup this is the card warlock has wanted for some time, the only thing is, i hate with a passion that the death knight heros are basicly must play , i really don’t want to have to craft the warlock one to play, and it’s ridiculous that they’re so prominent.

Yeah, but every other card in Warlock that supports this is easy to get (only one epic that is desirable and a mess of commons and rares). This will make zoo playable and keep it cheap. You can play zoo without Gul’dan DK.

I’d argue that bloodbloom is not a meta card nowadays and that the deck you want this for doesn’t run that much of self-damaging sources, i’d say hellfire, abyssal enforcer and little more than would be not forced into.

Anyway, after seeing the two both cards that were spoiled after this one – Kobold Librarian and Vulgar Homunculus – i’m not to so sure this card is that bad either is only for a heavy control deck (told be truth, nowadays aggro is not pure aggro anyways so…)